jeremy and i like to play the 'what would you grab if you had a limited amount of time to get out of the house' game. usually we just say each other. and the rats though i'm pretty sure they could chew their way out through the window. they've done it before.

truthfully, the thing of most collective value in our humble abode is our book collection which, as irony and pending superhuman strength would have it, is also the heaviest and most impractical collection of things to attempt to salvage in an emergency situation.

maybe our place would burn quickest with such bountiful access to paper. maybe the fire would read everything in one giant, ravenous gulp.

if having stuff tethers you to a place, keeps you from leaving in the middle of the night, (or early in the morning if that's more your thing), then it's certainly the books that keep us firmly planted here.

in addition to our own collection a series of foster books can, at any one time, be found mingling with our nuclear family of books. books from the library, books borrowed from friends, books kept for a brief time and then put back into the rich, collective stream of shared stories.

sometimes i want to roll around in books. sometimes i do. sometimes it feels as though that's just what reading is, a delicious and full-force frolic between a front cover and a back.

i recently received an email from my grandma, (hello, 2012) in response to something i'd written last week proclaiming to be an atheist. what, she asked, did i then believe in and why did i not believe in god.

questions like this i suppose, asked with genuine curiosity, can give one an opportunity to explore the reasons why we proclaim the things we do. and so for grandma, and the health of introspection, let me attempt to respond.

i am an atheist because i do not believe in god. i do not believe that one person created the universe and i do not believe that one person watches over our lives and ultimately decides, in the end, how we should be rewarded or punished for the manner in which we chose to live them.

i do not believe in god because despite much evidence to the contrary, i am a scientific minded person who seeks to understand the world around her by a system of logic. what do i see. what do i hear. what do i feel and why do i feel that way. is there reason for me to question things (always). is there reason for me to stop searching (never).

i believe that everything in the world is connected. my molecules and your molecules. the air i share in perfect union with plants. my actions. your response. my submission. your compassion. there is no step i take that doesn't impact something. the ground. a bug. someone i choose to acknowledge or ignore.

a friend told me that the only discernible difference between apes and humans is our ability to label and categorize our experience and in so doing, our perception that everything outside of ourselves is 'other'. this is just not so. the only divisions between ourselves, (the earth, the universe, understanding), are fabricated in the constructs of our language. our need to understand by naming isolates us from experiencing our lives as they actually are, not separate from our surroundings but completely and organically a part of them.

i don't believe in god but i do believe in the divine and it isn't something outside ourselves or in a select few or in some unknowable being. it's within and without and it's always been and it always will be.

well first there was wales, and then there was looking at wales photos at every available time slot to remember wales and then there was a quick succession of very engrossing novels, followed, preceded and surrounded by a heat wave and trying to stay cool with diy methods such as making a pool out of the bathtub and negotiating both of ourselves in there comfortably. fine tuning who still has dry hands to reach the books.

my water is balanced on a stack of very interesting kids books i got out of the library and heard about it in some pamphlet celebrating toronto library's 100 years of fine children's literature. the chinese version of little red riding hood is heartbreaking and i've gone back through it twice to determine what the wolf's crime was, apart from just wanting to come inside.

jeremy has gone to work which seems sacrilegious on a sunday. even though i'm an atheist, i still believe some things are sacred like taking a day off and jeff buckley's version of hallelujah. i love that song. it reminds me of christmas and the sadness of longing.

i'm going to make a chocolate cake in the shape of a mountain. i'll dust the peaks with icing sugar, mold tiny climbers out of marzipan and lower them down the face of the mountain with black licorice ropes. it's a good thing ropes aren't made of licorice in real life. or maybe it would be better? 'instead of descending from the summit of chocolate mountain, the climber decided to stay put, but not first without feasting on all 100 yards of the well braided, black licorice rope.'

we went to a party last night. a summer party in the backyard of a coworker, there was music and patio lights and clusters of people drinking and laughing and melting into the very middle of the hot season. i always feel funny at parties, not terribly at ease, like i'm not sure who to talk to and for how long and what to do with my arms so i look both relaxed and engaging. it's a nice thing, about your thirties, you get to know these truths about yourself like i prefer to be alone or in the company of a small group of friends.

or here with you, sharing my wares, where the honesty comes easiest when there's no one to expect it.